This saturday we had a fully-sponcered CIEE trip to Bastogne, which is, of course, famous for its role in the Battle of the Bulge in December and January of 1944 and 1945.
The town is a tiny, tiny, little village in the southeastern corner of Belgium, near the border with Luxembourg. (Brussels is broken into 10 Provinces, the province in which Bastogne is located is called Luxembourg, and it borders on the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, that tiny little nation between Belgium and Germany. Oh yeah, and the capital of Luxembourg (the nation, or duchy, if you prefer) is also called Luxembourg, so you can imagine that this is never, ever, confusing at all.
We left from school at around 8 in the morning (the earliest I've been awake since getting to Europe), and drove all the way to Luxembourg for a visit to the American cemetary there, which serves as the final resting place for thousands of men (and 1 woman - a nurse) who lost their lives in the Battle of the Bulge. Amoung those buried there in General Patton, who requested that he be buried amoung his men when he died. Apparently he was killed in a minor car accident in Germany just after the war, I never knew that.
After the cemetary we headed up to the town of Bastonge for lunch and a bri
ef tour of the town itself (which doesnt take too long, its only a few streets). We then moved on to the battle memorial which is located just east of the town on a little hill. From there you can see pretty much the whole town and the surrounding areas. Our guide (who had witnessed the battle at age 8) pointed out the various places where the Americans were positioned and you could see how close the Nazis were to overrunning the town on all sides. The monument itself is pretty impressive as well, a fitting tribute to the people it was built to honor.
ef tour of the town itself (which doesnt take too long, its only a few streets). We then moved on to the battle memorial which is located just east of the town on a little hill. From there you can see pretty much the whole town and the surrounding areas. Our guide (who had witnessed the battle at age 8) pointed out the various places where the Americans were positioned and you could see how close the Nazis were to overrunning the town on all sides. The monument itself is pretty impressive as well, a fitting tribute to the people it was built to honor.We also visted a portion of the woods around the town, in the area that was being held by Easy Company
(if anyone is familiar with the HBO mini-series Band of Brothers), and had a chance to actually see some of the foxholes which are still there. The forest is incredibly dense and dark (even in the middle of the day) and its hard to see anything more than a few hundred feet in front of you. Since we were visiting in the beginning of February, I expect we saw things very much as they were when the battle began - there was even snow on the ground. After looking at the size of those foxholes it's hard to believe that anyone could manage to fight a war while living in one of them for the better part of a month.
Finally, we made a brief stop at a German cemetary in the area, just to the north of Bastogne, which is quite different from the American cemetary. Rather than being in a wide open, sun-lit field, this place was covered mostly by trees and looked much more somber as a result. Another difference was the grey crosses that were used instead of the bright white crosses we're used to seeing in military cemetaries. Apparently, under the Treaty of Versaillies, one of the punishments to Germany was that they could not bury their soldiers under white marble crosses any longer, so they had to use grey granite instead. When WWII began, they continued this practice, so all German cemetaries from the two wars have grey, not white crosses.
We returned to Bastonge for dinner (probably the best meal I've had since we've been here), which was absolutely delicious. Restaurants in Belgium take a little getting used to, because when you go out for dinner here it's not simply because you need to eat, it's an event in itself. Most dinners in nicer places will be at least 2 hours long, probably more. They don't exactly rush to bring you your food, and then when you are finished they give you a nice long break before dessert and coffee. Even after all that, you have to actually ask for your check, because the waiters arent trying to hustle you out the door like they do back home. Mostly that has to do with the fact that you arent supposed to tip over here, so the servers aren't dependent on getting as many customers as possible to make more money. Instead they make an hourly wage, so they are happy to let you take your time. Then again, the flip side of that is that service isn't always exactly first class, but usually it's been pretty good.
Anyways, back to our trip.....Its interesting to note that the town of Bastogne, unlike many other places in Wallonia (the French-speaking half of Belgium), and certainly unlike France itself, is all about America. There were 2 American tanks parked in the town with flags flying above them and a bronze statue of General McAuliffe (famous for his responce to the German request for surrender: "Nuts". The Germans had a hard time understanding what that meant) who is revered for saving the town.
After dinner we headed back home, and arrived back in Brussels around 11. It was a long day, but a very interesting and worthwhile one, I'm sure this will be one of my favorite memories from Belgium.
Next: Mardi Gras in Binche on Tuesday! (actually it already happened, but it will be my next post).
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